


all these pretty lies (I learnt from you)

by petroltogo



Series: Bitter Sunday [7]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Because This Author Is Still Bitter About The Way Infinity War Handled The CW Aftermath, Bitter Rhodey, But A Very Different Interpretation Of Said Canon, Canon Compliant with Infinity War, Dark Rhodey, Gen, Not A Fix-It, Not Steve Rogers Friendly, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Reinterpretation of a Scene, Reunions, Rhodey Meets The Rogues, Team Iron Man, Team Tony, no forgiveness, not team Cap friendly, nothing is resolved, vengeful Rhodey
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-12
Updated: 2018-08-12
Packaged: 2019-06-26 06:59:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,102
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15658125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petroltogo/pseuds/petroltogo
Summary: "There are no harmless questions or easy answers these days, and Rhodey’s heart has less room for forgiveness than he’d like to believe."Rhodey reunites with the rogue Avengers in the wake of Tony's disappearance. (What he wants to do and what he needs to do are two very different things.)





	all these pretty lies (I learnt from you)

**Author's Note:**

> One of the scenes in IW I struggled with the most was the reunion between Rhodey and the Rogues. This is less of a fix-it and more of a reinterpretation of that moment because let’s face it, canon MCU is way past fixing. Also the dialogue isn’t quite the same because I couldn’t find the scene again and grew impatient.
> 
> Enjoy the bitterness!

Rhodey stares at the ragtag group of people that he has and hasn’t expected on his doorstep for sixteen hours now. There’s been no doubt in his mind that they would show up eventually. Not with how Tony publically disappeared with a damn UFO in the sky after New York almost got levelled to the ground again. Because Tony Stark doesn’t do such things as subtlety. Whatever rock the ex-Avengers have been hiding under, there was simply no way they would miss this.

There was no way they wouldn’t come.

Rhodey has been preparing himself for this confrontation ever since. It’s not a meeting he’s been looking forward to.

(Except that’s a lie. Because there are too many nights he has been lying awake, picturing this very moment. Too many painful, exhausting exercises to rebuild and strengthen his muscles he got through with gritted teeth and visions of punching the faces in front of him. Too many steps he’s only taken to spite them.)

“Captain.” Rhodey greets the man he used to admire because he can think of nothing else to say. The words are too stiff, too formal, lacking the camaraderie and respect they used to hold so naturally, and Rhodey tightens his grip on the table in front of him.

It’s as much to keep himself upright as to keep himself from walking up to them. He doesn’t know what he’ll do if he lets go. Doesn’t know which of the many options he’s dreamed up over the past months would play out, and he can’t risk it. No matter how much his clenched fingers ache. There’s a knife’s edge Rhodey is balancing on, trapped between what he wants to do and what he knows he has to do.

If Tony were here—

But Tony isn’t here, isn’t by his side where he belongs, running his mouth and offending people left and right, is lost to them in a way Rhodey never imagined, and he grits his teeth against the words he wants to speak. Makes a joke about his old team mates’ rundown appearances instead that speaks of _we’re on the same side now_ and _all is forgiven_. It eases the tension like he’d hoped it would, and Rhodey mentally claps himself on the back in congratulations, even as he wonders who has taught him how to lie so seamlessly — Tony Stark or Steve Rogers.

(There are no harmless questions or easy answers these days, and Rhodey’s heart has less room for forgiveness than he’d like to believe.)

Then the senator speaks up, which is never a good sign. Rhodey doesn’t roll his eyes at the man, but it’s a near thing. His orders are utter bullshit. The kind that gets too many people killed because someone way up the chain has lost all contact with reality, and it grants at Rhodey, rubs him in all the wrong ways. Even without past injuries — the kind that have improved but not yet healed (and there’s a metaphor in here somewhere, thrown so hard into everyone’s faces that they’re blind to it) — Rhodey couldn’t have taken these people down on his own. And even if he could, it still wouldn’t be the best course of action.

Not with the current, on-going crisis and their painful lack of capable fighters.

(And Rhodey wouldn’t have cared, wouldn’t have hesitated, no matter the consequences, if only—)

But he’s never liked this particular politician, never liked indulging the man’s overinflated sense of importance, not when he’d been one of the louder voices, guilting and pressuring the only Avenger left to blame, and it’s so damn satisfying to tell the guy to fuck off.

(The disobedience would have tasted much sweeter, were Tony here to smirk and crow and clap him on the shoulder, and Rhodey hates every second of it.)

“I’m not looking for forgiveness,” Rogers says and Rhodey wants to laugh, to scream, to break—

(They’re standing here, in his home, in Tony’s workshop, Tony’s sanctuary, at ease and comfortable and untouchable, as though they have the right—)

But Tony is gone. Tony is missing, far beyond Rhodey’s, beyond anyone’s reach. And Rhodey will do whatever it takes to get Tony back, to give him the best possible odds, to ensure that there is still an Earth left for Tony to return to.

Wars aren’t won by heroes. They’re won by armies and their allies are in short supply.

So Rhodey grins, and ignores the churning in his gut, and ignores Vision’s guilty glances (as though there is any way Tony didn’t _know_ ), and ignores the hatred that burns bright, bright, brighter at the ease with which the exiled return, slotting back into place as though they never left, as though there weren’t too many reasons why they left, and he calls Steve Rogers “Captain” because an undeserved title is easier to bear than a pretence of kinship to a man he no longer respects. No matter how false or superficial it might have been.

(Rhodey has been Tony’s friend for years. Has stood by his side for longer than any of these people have known he exists. He’s watched Tony evade interviewer’s questions and twist talk show moderator’s words around, has watched him dance around politicians and play the public’s worries like an old game of Tetris in which his record remains unbroken.

Steve Rogers is just another enemy with a well-recognised face, and Rhodey’s forgive and let go attitude another role to be played. An act he’s been through an untold number of times already. Say all the right words and shake all the right hands, because you don’t punch important people in the face until Tony is around to bail you out.)

And Rhodey looks at the man that broke Tony in a way that no one had managed since Obadiah, since Afghanistan, and he says the only thing he can say, the only thing that is left to say:

(It’s Steve and Tony everyone always considers too alike to get along, not that either of them is willing to admit it. But it’s Steve and Rhodey who are really made of the same stuff, right down to the core. Rhodey wonders if Rogers has realised that yet. If he can see Tony’s bruised face in the glint in Rhodey’s eyes. Recognises that same willingness to watch the world burn, that same readiness to _light the fire_. Wonders if he can feel the inevitable—)

“What’s the plan, Captain?”

[ _ ~~And when the time comes, I will make the same choice you did and I won’t be dumb enough to leave you alive.~~_ ]

**Author's Note:**

> Thoughts?


End file.
